Order to Kill

CHAPTER 30

NEAR BHAKKAR

PAKISTAN

JOE Maslick adjusted his grip under Rapp’s arm, dragging him down the hallway with the help of one of Saad Chutani’s men. Rapp wasn’t moving at all, his bare feet just dragged lifelessly across the concrete floor. Maslick was actually a little relieved when he started to cough, despite the fact that every successive convulsion sprayed blood from his grotesquely swollen lips. When a pink tooth dislodged and skittered across the floor, though, the sweat running down the former Delta operator’s back turned cold.

Had he gone too far? The goal was to mimic the damage Jesem had suffered and obscure any differences between his and Rapp’s features. It had been no small task. The Pakistanis had gone to town on Jesem, and his nose had been significantly different from Rapp’s in both size and shape. Trying to make the switch convincing without doing damage severe enough to hinder Rapp’s operational ability had been impossible.

Rapp had survived his years in this business because he was just plain faster, stronger, smarter, and more accurate than everyone else. There was no way that was true any longer. If he never came back from this mission, Maslick would spend the rest of his life wondering if it had been the result of one too many uppercuts to the chin for him to see straight. A kick to the ribs that was a little too hard to allow him to move effectively. Internal bleeding created while trying to match the bruising on Jesem’s stomach.

General Shirani appeared at the end of the hallway with two of his men, effectively blocking it. Just like Rapp had said he would.

“What are you doing with my prisoner?”

Maslick took in a breath and let it out slowly. This was going to be the hard part. He’d never been much of a talker, even when he was a kid. But that was okay. His job was shooting, not making speeches. He said what needed to be said and then killed the people who needed to be killed. Unfortunately, his orders in this situation were somewhat different.

“Get the fuck out of the way,” he said.

Good use of vulgarity, but too quiet. Too hesitant. Shirani was a useless Pakistani piece of shit, but he was still a four-star. And that was a rank Maslick had spent most of his life being taught to respect.

“Where is Mitch Rapp?”

“He went out to one of the trucks. Said he needed to talk to-”

It turned out that Rapp wasn’t really unconscious. Maslick felt a painful jab in the small of his back.

“I mean, he said he needed to get out of this shithole.”

“Our nuclear facility isn’t luxurious enough for him?”

“I think he meant your whole fucking country.”

The sharp edge of Rapp’s thumbnail was replaced by a couple of encouraging pats.

Both Rapp and Kennedy believed that General Shirani had an open communication channel with ISIS. He denied any connection, but the truth was that he’d get in bed with anyone interested in weakening the civilian government.

The idea now was to piss him off. To make him so mad that he’d forget his fear of Rapp and do anything he could to screw over America in general, and the Agency in particular.

“Answer my question,” Shirani said through clenched teeth. “Just where is it you think you’re taking my prisoner?”

“He’s our prisoner now,” Maslick said, following the script Rapp had given him. “I’m taking him to our base outside of Awaran. So why don’t you get the fuck out of my way?”

Shirani’s cheek twitched visibly. His men moved their hands a little closer to their weapons, waiting for the order to kill the insubordinate American standing in front of them.

“You’re not taking that man anywhere.”

Maslick hesitated and Rapp gave him an encouraging nudge.

“Hey, if you want to talk to Mitch, I can go out and get him. But if he has to come back in here, I can guarantee you he’s going to kick your fat ass up and down this hallway. I’ll bet that won’t play too good on your campaign posters.”

He’d finally pushed the man to the point that he was pretty much mute. Whether that was a good thing or not remained to be seen. What was certain, though, was that he was succeeding in the mission that Rapp had charged him with. He’d made the old soldier so mad that he couldn’t think straight.

As Maslick started forward again, Shirani, in a pathetic effort to save face, grabbed the man he thought was Eric Jesem and looked into his swollen face. “Take him if you want him. He’s given me what I need.”

Maslick’s normal strategy would be to call that a win and get the hell out of there before everyone started shooting at him. But that wasn’t what they were after here.

“He didn’t give your punk-ass interrogators shit.”

Maslick pulled Rapp away from the man and began dragging him toward the front of the building. “Now tell your people to get out of the way so Chutani’s guys can get a transport in. This man needs to be in Awaran by zero six thirty and Mitch and I want to be on a plane out of here in an hour. Is that understood?”

When they came out into the blinding sunlight, Maslick half expected to find fifty guys with M4s pointed in his direction. Instead, there was an armored van and a couple of men from Chutani’s elite guard. He handed his limp prisoner off to them and they literally threw him into the back. Maslick watched as Rapp slammed down on his cuffed hands and rolled into a bench. A moment later, the doors were locked and Maslick was standing in the cloud of dust left by the vehicle’s spinning tires.

He watched it pass through the gate and recede up the road for what was probably too long, then started toward a vehicle that would take him to a commercial airport. Apparently, the G550 was cooked. Rapp had trashed the landing gear with his little excursion into the desert.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Umar Shirani standing in the doorway of the building’s tiny office. The man looked like he wanted to carve someone’s heart out.

Mission accomplished.